UK Terror Attack is 'Inevitable' Warn Security Chiefs

Armed police were present over fears a suspected Islamist plot to target London's Cenotaph was going to take placeReuters

A terrorist attack in the UK in the coming months is "almost inevitable" following a rise in the amount of Islamic terrorist-related activity, security chiefs have warned.

Ministers have been warned of a "step change" in the threat of terrorism by security officials and following confirmation that three alleged plots have been stopped by police and MI5 in the past four months.

Four men, aged 19 to 27, were arrested under the Terrorism Act after raids in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and West London, on suspicion of launching a terrorist attack using knives or other bladed weapons.

May said the reason for the increase was due to "developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West".

There have been a number of suspected terrorism-related arrests recently. Raffaello Pantucci, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, previously said it is "inevitable" that British citizens who have been radicalised in Syria will return to attack the UK.

However, General Sir Nicholas Houghton, head of the armed forces, dismissed fears of a terrorist attack.

"In an absolutely unreserved way I would say we have just got to keep continuing our normal life," he told The Andrew Marr Show.

"The last thing that we would want to do is succumb to any sense that there is a terrorist threat that is at all going to stop the British way of life."